They're basically the retirement home for once-good apps and services who still serve a dwindling core audience but are not longer growing or even a real contender in their field.

At least Evernote was saved by Bending Spoons. At one point, even Evernote was getting roughly a third of its monthly revenue from merchandise, which is pretty wild for a paperless note-taking app and a decent sign that the core business was already in bad shape. For the rest, though, they seem very good at squeezing hard whatever is left.